Written by

Angela Folds

For The Tennessean

The cover of Carole Webb Slater's 'Letters from the Heart.'

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When was the last time you wrote or received a handwritten letter? Technology (texts, email, social media) is rendering handwritten letter-writing a lost art. As a lover of penmanship, that makes me a little sad. Don’t get me wrong, I embrace change. It’s inevitable. I mean, if the Egyptians had resisted change, we’d still be writing in hieroglyphs on papyrus.

Handwritten letters are the source of Grassland author Carole Webb Slater’s book, “Letters from the Heart.”Her creative nonfiction work tells the story of Cobby Webb, a young pilot flying P-51 Mustangs in France and Germany during World War II.

The book is based on 250 letters that Cobby wrote over a two-year period to his parents and girlfriend (who later became his wife). “The pilot in this story is my father, who died 10 years after the war in a plane crash while working as an aeronautical engineer at Wright Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio,” Carole said. “My mother carried around these ‘letters of the heart’ for over 30 years before they were discovered after her passing. My father was the love of her life.”

Carole’s parents’ love story is the stuff of Nicholas Sparks’ fiction — a chance meeting in Nashville leads to a magic that lasts a lifetime. In the book, Carole also weaves historical facts about life at home during 1940s wartime. She chronicles her father’s journey through flight training to become a pilot, and she references major events that changed the world during this pivotal point in history. The book features a plethora of historical photographs of planes, people and places.

“Letters from the Heart,” which released in May, is receiving great responses from readers. “Some readers are inspired by the stories told in the letters about flight training and flying missions during the European Theatre, while other readers enjoy the wonderful love story that unfolds in the book,” Carole said.

Carole will participate in a panel presentation 3 p.m. Saturday at the Franklin Library Book Festival. The festival is 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Aug. 24 and 1:15-5 p.m. Aug. 25. This special two-day event features more than 20 local and area authors discussing, selling and signing books. For more information on the book festival, email billpeach@att.net.

Letters from the Heart” is available on Amazon in softcover, hardcover and digital formats. For more information or to request an autographed copy, contact Carole at carolewebbslater@gmail.com or P.O. Box 1291, Franklin, TN 37065.